Here in Orlando, Skycraft has all kinds of parts, although not much in the way of resistors or capacitors. Fry’s Electronics in Silicon Valley kind of fits the bill. It’s hard to find a good physical electronics store these days. That place was great and I spent much of my allowance money there. One crusty old guy was always chewing on a stubby cigar. They didn’t seem to mind me poking around and asking an endless string of beginner engineer questions. Three or four old-salts manned the counter. I also spent hours wandering around A&G Electronics, an old-time electronics parts store laid out in rows and rows of resistors, transformers, capacitors, tubes and transistors. It worked great since I lived 10 miles out of Philadelphia and there were several strong AM radio stations in the area. Mine used the latest off-the-shelf part, a germanium diode instead. I never built the so-called “traditional” crystal radio. I’d drag the beasts home and pull out parts, then use them in an early “diode radio” or something. The repair guy gave me old equipment he was going to throw away. In my early hardware hacking days, I lived down the street from a TV repair shop. Seeing the old parts brings back fond memories of what caused the piece to go into the box in the first place. I marvel at how the composition of the parts has changed over time. The thinking is that you’ll definitely need THAT part one day, so you start collecting.įortunately, my junk box never expanded geometrically as a lot of these “habits” seem to do. If you build projects you’ll simply have to have a junk box. One pride and joy of every ham is the “junk box,” otherwise known as a parts bin.
#Put your junk in that box license#
Eventually, at 15 I passed my Novice amateur (ham) radio license tests and was “on-the-air” as WN4WOF. Heathkit was well-known in DIY circles and I remember my Dad bought an FM tube radio kit that we put together over a couple of evenings. That certainly explains my Radio Jones for Wi-Fi today. As a ten-year-old, I was fascinated with radios.
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